Ian Kuijt is a Professor of Anthropological Archaeology and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and growing up in Lethbridge, Alberta, he is interested in the origins of agriculture in the Near East, the Archaeology of the Irish Famine, and the prehistory of Western North America.

He holds BA in History from the University of Lethbridge, an MA in Archaeology from Simon Fraser University, and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University. Among other publications Kuijt is co-author of Island Places, Island Lives: Exploring Inishbofin and Inishark Heritage, Co. Galway, Ireland (2014) and People of the Middle Fraser Canyon: An Archaeological History (2012), and editor, or co-editor, of Transformation byFire: The Archaeology of Cremation in Cultural Context (2014), and Life in Neolithic Farming Communities: Social Organization, Identity, and Differentiation (2000). His research has been supported by the National Endowments for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the British Academy. His most recent research focuses on the ethnoarchaeology and archaeology of the Irish Famine, and has spent the last six summers excavating 1790s to 1890s houses on the abandoned island of Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland.